


Po' Boys

by levaagrace



Category: Lake Pontchartrain - Ludo (Song), Ludo (Band), The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Statement Fic (The Magnus Archives)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-26
Updated: 2020-09-26
Packaged: 2021-03-07 23:46:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26656099
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levaagrace/pseuds/levaagrace
Summary: Statement of Andrew Volpe, regarding losing his friends to the waves of Lake Pontchartrain in the United States. Original statement given 26th of February 2008.
Kudos: 2





	Po' Boys

**Author's Note:**

> This is an incredibly self-indulgent... thing I wanted to put out into the world. Please enjoy.

**ARCHIVIST**

Statement of Andrew Volpe, regarding losing his friends to the waves of Lake Pontchartrain in the United States. Original statement given 26th of February 2008. Audio recording by Jonathan Sims, Head Archivist for The Magnus Institute, London. Statement Begins.

**ARCHIVIST (STATEMENT)**

I’ll tell it like it happened EXACTLY. No lies, no details omitted. The flat-out truth of the damn thing.

It was the Tims and Matt and me going on a road trip. We were just trying to get out of Missouri. We were miserable. I mean, you trying living in that state your whole life and not go insane with boredom. It was supposed to be a fun time, y’know?

We took the I-55 and headed to Louisiana. Wait, y’all probably don’t have interstates here, right? Whatever, the point is, we took a break off the highway to eat once we got into Louisiana. Plus, y’know, 10ish hour drive, we needed to stretch our legs again and all that. And that close to the gulf, they wanted crawfish. But… but I’m allergic to shellfish, so… so I got chicken instead. I don’t know. Maybe that had something to do with it, in the end. Probably not, but like I said, exactly how it happened.

So we get back on the I and at that point the only station really coming in clear was, like, blues. Soul. It was a Clarence Carter song playing when… when it first happened. I can remember it ‘cause it wasn’t the first or the last time that happened. But he was interrupted right in the middle of it. I thought it was some strange-ass local show’s ad. It said:

> “Come down to Lake Pontchartrain, rest your soul and feed your brain.  
>  That’s where you will get to see everything the water can be.”

We didn’t think much about it. The song kept playing after that and we just laughed it off. By the time we were reaching Slidell it was coming down. Biblical, y’know. Thunder and sheets of rain and wind. A lot of wind. It felt almost like we were being dragged down to hell if I’m being honest. We followed the signs to a motel just in case, the Choctaw Motel specifically for y’all’s records, and decided to parked in its parking lot to just… figure out what our next move was.

Not even two seconds after, before I could even cut off the gas, this… hobo vagrant… THING come out of the bayou. The only really visible figure out in that downpour. Almost like a… a flailing tongue. He was horrifically jaundiced; the whites of his eyes weren’t white anymore. They were just flat out yellow. His skin was sallow, hanging off his bones like an ill-fitting suit, which was why I even noticed his eyes. That… and his teeth. I didn’t realize teeth THAT rotted could still be in a person’s skull. I could count on one hand how many of them were still relatively white. Pitch black. Every one of them. I swear to God. And out that came flailing at us. Banging on our windshield. Screaming like a banshee at the top of its lungs the same refrain we had heard before. But… more.

> “Come down to Lake Pontchartrain, rest your soul and feed your brain.  
>  Free for you and all your friends, crawfish ‘till the bitter end.  
>  Come down to Lake Pontchartrain, wade to where the shallows break.  
>  That’s where you will get to see everything the water can be.”

I mean. Like I said. I had the chicken and they had crawfish. Maybe that saved me. Maybe it was just… one of those weird coincidences. Maybe you can figure that out for me.

Anyway.

I don’t know what luck it was that my damn shitty ass Camry was still running when that happened, but I peeled the fuck out of there. I mean, who the fuck wouldn’t? At that point none of us cared if that guy was just a guy or some horror from the depth of Satan’s asshole. I got us the fuck out of there as fast as I could. Sorry for the curses, it’s just… it still didn’t feel like a thing, y’know? I mean. There still wasn’t anything REALLY weird about it. Scary ass psycho at your car and an intense thunderstorm you feel like will drown you? That’s just a Tuesday in the summer down in the southern and midwestern states.

But then we got back on the interstate.

I was just driving wherever at that point. We were too spooked to continue our beach road trip that night, but we were definitely NOT staying at that motel. There was a lot of yelling about just crashing at a truck stop versus shelling the cash out for a different motel. In the end it didn’t really matter what we had decided, ‘cause before we got too far into it, we realized that the interstate was flooded. And the only road we could take was through the neighboring woods.

So obviously I lose the road in the rain. It was around 7 PM by then anyway and the storm wasn’t exactly helping with visibility to begin with, let alone under the canopy of the trees. The lightning did illuminate some of it though. But I’m not gonna go around thanking it. Because all it did was help lead me to their end. The road we took ended right at the sign to Lake Pontchartrain itself.

I was going to back out of that lot as soon as I saw the damn thing, didn’t even care if the guys had any objections. Not that I thought they would. At least. I thought they wouldn’t. It was Convy who saw… whatever it was first. Probably because he was shotgun and Matt and Ferrell were in the back. Anyway, Convy, Convy started to freak out. Saying there was someone out in the water, out in the waves.

I wear glasses, sure, and I know I’ve mentioned the storm CONSTANTLY, but I swear. I swear on their lives. I didn’t see a damn thing in that lake. Waves, yeah, debris, absolutely, but a person? No.

As soon as he took off his seatbelt so did the others. It was way too fast for me to really react outside of yelling at them to stop. Just to get back in the car. COME BACK. I should’ve locked the doors, but that wouldn’t have held them. And they were determined. They didn’t even shut the doors behind them when they went out, they were so intent on saving whatever phantom they saw in the water. I can still smell the mildew and brine in my car from the torrent that filled their spaces.

Why the hell would they leave the car?

You know how they say when the waves get calm and recede, that’s when you need to head inland? It was like the whole of the lake, or at least what I could see, was pulling back as they approached it. Lightning struck and I could see through it, in the waves, the crawfish. Hundreds of them. Thousands of them. I couldn’t move as the wave climbed and climbed while all the while my friends ran into it. And it was like the crawfish were drawing to them. And it was like I could hear the crawfish screaming.

> Come down to Lake Pontchartrain  
>  _Come down to Lake Pontchartrain_   
>  **COME DOWN TO LAKE PONTCHARTRAIN**   
>  _**C O M E D O W N T O L A K E P O N T C H A R T R A I N**_

Before the wave crashed down on them, they’d stopped moving. If anything, I think… I think they might’ve been… relieved. They just… stared up at it, arms outstretched. Like they were going to catch something, or someone. And then. It swallowed them.

That’s how it happened. All of it. From beginning to end. I told you the absolute truth and you know why? Because I have no reason to lie. There are no bodies for anyone to find. They’re gone. Into the drink. I lost my friends out in that storm, to some… cthulhuesque thing in fucking Louisiana.

I moved here to get away from everyone telling me I should be in jail, should’ve faced some kind of judgement. And I can’t say I really disagree. The police barely even combed the lake. I don’t even know if they tried to look for eyewitnesses. Apparently, it’s ‘normal’ for people to go missing in a large body of water during a storm like that.

Whatever. I’m done. If you have anymore questions, just go and ask Lake Pontchartrain.

**ARCHIVIST**

Statement Ends. Mr. Volpe eventually moved back to St. Louis in 2010, as far as paperwork from employers and landlords show. We couldn’t get in contact with him for follow-up, unfortunately, as he gave no forwarding address nor mobile number. As far as finding out anything about the three victims – Tim Convy, Tim Ferrell, and Matt Palermo – there were missing persons report for all three of them in 2007 that corroborate the ‘vacation’ Mr. Volpe said they were on and where they were. Now, considering this is a long, long ways from home, I’m not keen on expending any more resources or energy on it. I did, however, cross-referenced with The Usher Foundation to see if they had received it. As they hadn’t, I’ve sent them a copy for their own records and follow-up. Real or not, it’d be untenable to me to leave them in the dark about something in their own backyard. Recording Ends.

**Author's Note:**

> I hope y'all liked it. Check out the song it references if you'd like.  
> Lake Pontchartrain by LUDO off their album You're Awful, I Love You.


End file.
